Snapshots
by fascimility
Summary: Snapshots. Premeiji era. Centred around Kenshin.


Disclaimer: I don't own, not one bit.

Notes: Written in about 2 hours, give or take five. The timing isn't really equal for the sections. Snapshots on Kenshin. Pre-meiji era only, because I didn't have time to do the rest. For tm challenge: snapshots. Comments and critiques welcome.

_**Snapshots**_

The night lay heavy with the weight of a thousand flowers blooming, their fragrance lingering and soothing, perfuming the air with their scent. 

The lantern glowed in the dim darkness, illuminating the small corner of the room. It threw its amber light in dappled, wavering patches, light dancing amongst the shadows in graceful flowing movements.

The warm breeze made its way in, teasing the flame, gliding gently through the windows. Her soft eyes were ravaged with pain, and a deadly lassitude had swept though her limp body and left it soulless and empty. She lay oblivious to all else; the waning, flickering light and the damp clothes stained and strewn across the floor, her fingers only stroking the bundle in her arms with tender caressing strokes.

The baby was oddly silent, the large amber orbs liquid and translucent, like the finest marbles she had ever seen.

She smiled and her fingers let go, releasing the cloth to fall by her sides. Darkness like a black cloud descended and cast its ominous shadow, and she closed her eyes in surrender. 

She saw, vivid and startlingly clear, a brightly lit tableau that soon faded into dimness; the baby's amber orbs sparkling in their intensity, the smouldering flame burning solitary in the darkness, and the flutter of grey ash as the fire extinguished.

And she wondered if the baby would live to understand.

Harsh dry wind raced part, stirring the dust at Shinta's feet. The dirt road was cracked and yellow, the sand whirling with each step he took. His throat was parched and filled with a burning thirst that felt like the baking ground.

He longed for water; the cool expanse of water that would soothe the pain and engulf him in its chilly embrace. The rice paddies had withered, yellow and emaciated, bent over with the weight of their stalks.

His tears had longed ceased with the drought, but the pain that had cut him so deeply lingered on, the wound gaping and raw.

The stalks of dry flowers still held a glimmer of beauty in their shrivelled hideousness; some fullness of bloom, some delicacy of petal, some grace of form. He placed them gently, one by one, before the mounds of earth before him.

His mother, his father, his brothers. He stood there, and stared at them amongst the swirling dust, his tears long wept dry.

His slippered feet were grimy and dusty, weary from the day's work.

He stared into the room, with its cool interior, elegant scrolls fluttering in the breeze, the pages spread on the table flipping in synchrony as the pleasant droning of the teacher continued.

He looked on with those wide, lost eyes, as he dreamed that he too, could enter the school.

Sound of horses, wails of women, blazing of fire.

He stared up at the chaos, a dimly lit figure amongst the wild figures rushing past, their movements jerky and terrified, like marionette pulled on a string.

People were running, fleeing in hoards as they rushed towards nowhere in a dizzying stampede. They took what they could, left what they couldn't.

He heard, through the cacophony of noises, the shrill calling of a woman shouting out his name, her voice distorted with panic and urgency. 

At that moment, he felt the fear rising in the air, saturating the atmosphere, tainting the air with its acrid pungence. Then he saw them. They galloped though the narrow alleys in their steeds, looting and burning, striking out blindly, killing; women, children, all.

He was snatched up by arms and placed into a wagon, before the horses started up again and he could feel the cart jump with each bump and pothole on the dusty road.

He looked back and saw through the blazing fires, hazy silhouettes that flickered in the light, falling like moths, bodies piling atop as the horsemen advanced.

And his eyes sparkled, from tears or smoke, with the reflection of the wine red flames dancing in those amber orbs.

He wept bitterly, with a pain he thought was already buried beneath the mind-numbing weariness of manual labour and cemented in by time.

Dawn was breaking, and as the rays of the awakening sun struck the ground he felt the misty dampness increase, and the light seemed to take on a hazy quality, as though it was reaching him from a long distance away.

His hands were rubbed raw by the stones and earth, but he felt nothing of it, only standing before the three that meant the most to him, silently weeping, grieving.

He watched as the man poured sake over the mounds of dirt, an offering that he could never give.

They had pleaded for him, begged for him, screamed their voices hoarse for him as the bandits cut them down. He could only stand by, helpless, useless, worthless. He, a man, had failed.

There was nothing left for him how in the world; the village was razed to the ground, carpeted with grey ashes soft as snow, and what remained of family had perished in the fall of a sword.

So when the quietly smirking man asked him to go with him, Kenshin followed. Shinta was too weak, left behind to weep over the gravestones.

The waterfall crashed behind him in a cascade of spray and foam, its turbulent waters hurled against the stone with the ebb and fall of the tide.

Kenshin shivered involuntarily, feeling the water on his skin, rushing past his ankles. He trained his eyes on Hiko, steadying himself, feeling the tide pulsating at his feet.

His muscles were aching with the effort, crying out in protest against him as he lunged forward to doge a blow. He twisted and shifted away, readying himself for another attack.

The blow caught him at the small of his neck, sending him flying above the crystal waters. He landed with a splash, feeling the coolness closing over him.

He remembered the long walks at night, where he went to the stream to draw water, with the buckets hanging precariously at the two ends of the poles.

The water splashed in the buckets at every step he took.

Hiko never cared how long he took on these trips, so long as he had made dinner. The stars were beautiful; shimmering points of beauty in the darkness, far removed from the ugliness of the world.

Dinner was an easy affair, once Kenshin had grasped the concept of cooking without burning the food. 

Kenshin never drank, though Hiko often did, savouring the sake at the tip of his tongue before swallowing it with a gulp.

Kenshin merely watched him as one sip followed the other, the amber liquid downed with rapidity. Kenshin wondered why Hiko never smiled while drinking, though he said that drinking good sake was the most pleasurable thing in the world.

Maybe it was all there was.

The cold permeated his clothes and chilled him to the bone, sharp and cutting, his warmth draining from his body by the second.

The words had flown from his mouth as his rage had built within him, lending a fiery intensity to his eyes, his soul burning with passion he never knew.

Justice, truth, revolution. He knew what they meant. Hiko did not.

The snow fell on him steadily, white and savagely beautiful, icy and cold. He felt his rage subside in the cold and vanish with the sweeping winds, carried eastwards, past and mountains and beyond. 

The fire in the hut glowed through the windows, throwing its light upon the uneven ground, turning the ivory floor molten gold. Kenshin saw the stark, unmoving silhouette by the window.

Hiko did not smile this time, but even with the sake, that was understandable.

The falling rush of snow swirled by, and the last trace of the footsteps vanished with each gust of wind.

He knew that he'd caught his attention.

He felt the man's eyes trained on him; intelligent eyes, a sharp gaze that betrayed the great intellect beneath it.

The milling crowd had gathered to watch him, the young boy who had cut the wood clean off the post with a smooth fluid stroke.

Nonchalantly, he walked over and asked for his money, after all, it was that idiot who had made the bet to start with. But all the while he kept his attention turned towards the man at the periphery of the fray, a commanding presence quietly watching.

The man's name was Kogorou Katsura.

He washed his hands in the basin, rubbing them with the coarse cloth of the towel, scrubbing them till they were red and raw.

The room was dim, lighted only by one lamp in the corner, where the flame burned steadily away. Dawn was breaking, and the scarlet and violet hues were splashed across the horizon in bold, quick strokes, their colour melding and running together.

His sword lay in a corner clean and shining, Its edge had been scoured countless tines with the cloth and splashed countless times with water, yet he fancied in the dim light that he saw the tinge of scarlet still upon its blade and the stench of copper in its hilt.

Kenshin continued scrubbing.

Hiko taught him to fight, taught him determination, courage, strength, but Kenshin did not learn how to drink from Hiko.

Kenshin could drink now, small sips of a liquor so sweetly bitter that he no longer cared what it tasted like. All he knew was that beneath the sweetness lay a sharp acrid bitterness and beneath the bitterness there too, lay a fragrant sweetness.

The moon hung low and crimson, stained with the blood of a thousand men perished beneath her, embellished by the glint of the sword in the darkness.

The alleyways were empty, and the deafening calm of silence pervaded the night.

The light patter of feet, the flash of a blade, the ignoble fall that signified death.

Kenshin left, silent as the wind.

The countryside was simple.

The trees grew along the roadside, wild with untamed beauty. Kenshin gathered herbs for medicine in the mountains, where the pristine peacefulness had yet to be spoiled by the ravages of war.

He smiled more often then, his spirit free from the burden it had carried for too long. It was a carefree, genuine smile, tinged with real pleasure.

He wondered then, if Hiko had been wrong, for happiness was not sake, but rather, war, or the lack of it.

It was in that dying sunset that Tomoe said that she wanted to live with him, forever, not under pretence, but because she loved him mind, and soul with all the love she could muster from her cold heart.

Kenshin remembered it well, that waning dying light that had sealed their promise as they looked off the bridge into the distant horizon, their hands locked in dreams, wanting and hope.

He was blind and deaf. 

The world reared around him and lashed out at him, assaulting him, raring to bring him down to his knees.

Attack came after attack, unrelenting and furious, and he stumbled blindly around, his sword connecting with flesh as he struck.

He felt the man's presence before him and lunged out with all his might, putting all his strength into the final blow, a cry issuing from his throat as he plunged the sword deep in.

The scent of white plum perfume hit him, and he fell to his knees amongst the rustle of falling cloth.

The road was desolate and cold, with not another traveller in sight. The days were it rained were the most difficult, since the rain always fell in a raging torrent, never ceasing its incessant downpour.

Thank you, they all had said to him, thank you very much. But he had waved them away and smiled that charming smile and left, continuing his way, never looking back. He fought the battles not for himself, but for the people who were unable to, as atonement for his sins.

He wondered if that was enough.

But other worries soon got the better of him; more definite worries like food, shelter and water.

As it stood, if he had anything it was honour. A firm valiant honour.

And the smile.

It was on those rainy nights where the heavens seemed to be pouring and the ashen cloth of the sky ripped apart to release a torrential deluge that he sat in an inn drinking sake, warmed by the fiery burning liquid at the back of his throat and the solid comfort of his sword by his side.

Then as the few remaining inhabitants closed the shutters and drifted out he would put down the cup and make his way up to a room, blowing out the last candle on the way, and hoping that from the smouldering remains a new flame would spring forth; a new beginning, a new life.

And he would smile.

The End  
16/06/2004


End file.
